The Exiled Mare
by 1OriginalPony
Summary: Far away in the Everfree forest, there lives a young mare, alone, with a mane the colors of flame... An outcast to the world.
1. Prologue

Prologue

Outside, Ponyvill looked dark and gloomy. The only source of light was the shining moon, which was almost full. Suddenly, a shriek of pain tore through the silence, ringing throughout the small town. Dark clouds covered the moon, the only source of light, and blotted out the dim stars. Thunder roared throughout the sky as rain began to fall down to the dark earth. The weather started off as a steady downfall, but soon after it became a terrifying storm, water pelting the once dry ground. Strong winds howled, blowing blades of grass over. The scream belonged to Spitfire, who was on her back in one of the small Ponyvill houses. A stallion was with her, a dark shadow over his face.

Spitfire's face was twisted in pain, her yellow-and-orange hair sprawled out around her. "ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow! I don't know if I can do this, Lightningwing!" She whimpered.

"You're fine; It'll be over before you know it! Spitfire, you're a strong, beautiful mare. There's nothing you can't do." Lightningwing said gently and encouragingly, his warm blue eyes resting on his mate's. After three long hours pain and endless claps of thunder, the screaming came to a stop. Gently, carefully, the stallion bundled the newborn white filly with his horn and lifted it slightly. Its eyes were closed, and a tiny horn poked out of a tuft of flame colored mane; it consisted of a yellow color like Spitfire's, but while she had orange, the filly had red.

The new pony was slowly lowered into Spitfire's outstretched hoofs. "She's so beautiful." The new mother whispered, her eyes sparkling.

"What should we name her?" Lightningwing asked.

"How about... Flamerunner?" Spitfire suggested.

"Flamerunner." Lightningwing repeated, his voice full of consideration. "That's the second most beautiful name I've ever heard."

"Second? What's the first?" Spitfire asked, sounding a bit offended.

"Spitfire." He murmured. Spitfire blushed, and they both stared down at their daughter with loving eyes.

"Hold on a second!" Spitfire exclaimed, her eyes suddenly wide. "She never even cried! She's been silent this whole time!" The two parents, both concerned now, watched the young filly. Besides the fact that she haden't made a sound, the newborn was perfectly healthy; steady heartbeat, glossy coat, consistent breathing...

"She doesn't seem sick... Maybe she's a mute?" The stallion suggested, trying desperately to sound calm. He slowly unwrapped the filly from the blanket, and froze. Not only did Flamerunner have a horn, but tiny white wings as well.

"She's... She's an alicorn!" Spitfire gasped, her eyes wide in disbelief. Suddenly, the patter of rain and the howling wind stopped. The room was filled with a quiet and stillness that could not be interrupted; it would not be interrupted. For on that night, history was made.


	2. Chapter 1

Chapter one

"Flamerunner! You need to get up! You're gonna be late for your first day of school!" Spitfire called from the downstairs kitchen, sounding a bit less patient than the other three times she attempted to get the filly up. Flamerunner groaned and pulled the covers of her bed over her head. Three years had passed since that one night she was born, and it was time for her to go to school.

"FLAMERUNNER!"

"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT, I'M UP!" Flamerunner yelled back in a squeaky voice as she quickly pulled the covers from her face, orange eyes angry. With a sigh, the filly jumped out of bed and trotted to the bathroom, where she peered into the mirror. Her flame colored mane was a mess, her bangs fluffed in the air.

Flamerunner turned her head and stared at the blue mane comb. As her eyes intensely locked on it, the white horn on her head flickered dark red, and then glowed brightly. Flamerunner squeezed her eyes shut and attempted to lift the brush, her dark red aura flashing around it. After a long minute, the filly gave up, and her aura vanished instantly. Out of breath and disappointed, Flamerunner picked up the brush in her hoofs and ran it through her mane manually.

"Maybe next time." She said hopefully, orange eyes sparkling.

"Flamerunner! It's time to go!" Spitfire called up. "I have a present for you once you get down here!"

"PRESENT!?" Flamerunner gasped. Immediately, she ran from the bathroom and opened her wings, gliding down the stairs. Spitfire was waiting by the door, dressed in her blue-and-yellow Wonderbolts costume.

"Where's the present?" Flamerunner demanded, her eyes darting from left to right.

"Close your eyes." Spitfire laughed. Obediently, the filly closed her eyes and giggled with excitement. She felt something soft and silky slip over her head and lay on her body.

"Alright. Take a look."

Flamerunner opened her eyes to find a dark purple gown covering her.

"It's your school uniform!" Spitfire smiled warmly at her daughter, eyes shining with pride. Flamerunner just stared down at it.

"Oh… I thought it was gonna be something cool…" She pouted, crestfallen. Spitfire laughed warmly.

"You're my daughter, alright!" She teased. After staring down at it a while longer, Flamerunner's gaze became skeptical.

"Wait… Where're the wing holes?" She asked, attempting to open her wings under the uniform. Spitfire hesitated, averting her eyes from the filly's confused ones.

"Oh, um… erm… they were all out of the Pegasus uniforms! Sold out! So, I just bought you the unicorn one!"

"But I'm not _just_ a unicorn!" Flamerunner protested, her voice squeaking. "I'm a unicorn _and_ a Pegasus!" She stamped her hoof, offended by the thought of being others thinking she was just an ordinary unicorn.

"I know, I know. And for that, you're very proud." Spitfire's voice softened, trying to put what she had to say next delicately. "But sugarcube, do you really want to stick out like that? Everypony might make fun of you, or be mean out of jealousy! Is that what you want?"

The filly stared at the ground, deep in thought. Before she could say another word, her mother gasped and flung the door open. "You're gonna be late! And on your first day of school, too! Let's go, honey!"

Ponyville academy was gigantic. Three stories tall, split into three different sections; left was flight school, classes strictly for Pegasus. Middle was for everypony; it held all of the core classes (Mathematics, English, Science). Finally, the right building was exclusively for Unicorns. There, ponies of all ages were taught of magic and how to use it; they were separated into different classes depending on age. To top it all off, there was a majestic fountain right in the middle of campus. Students were scattered everywhere; Flamerunner noted that Pegasus wore blue and yellow cloaks, earth ponies wore green and yellow, and unicorns wore purple and yellow.

"Wow…" The filly whispered, suddenly feeling very small.

"Well, I did my job! I'll be back here to pick you up at 4:35! Are you gonna be okay?" Spitfire asked, an enthusiastic smile on her face.

"Yeah! I'll be fine!" Flamerunner squeaked, her eyes still fixed on the buildings.

"Alright then! I'm off!" Spitfire saluted her daughter, turning 'mother mode' off and 'super famous stunt flyer mode' on. She turned and launched herself into the air, 1ightning-filled smoke trailed behind her as she flew off into the distance.

"Woah! Was that Spitfire?"

"No way! The captain of the Wonderbolts was HERE?"

"Who's that she was talking to? Is that her daughter? So cool!"

All around Flamerunner, students were talking and murmuring excitedly.

"Oh yeah." The filly said to herself, a confident smile on her face. "I'll be just fine."


	3. Chapter 2

Chapter two

As she continued toward the unicorn building, Flamerunner was stopped by a blue Pegasus pony that circled overhead before landing directly in front of her. The blue filly was the same age as Flamerunner, and she had a rainbow mane.

"Was that Spitfire? _The _Spitfire?" She demanded pink eyes wide.

"Yeah...?" Flamerunner responded, feeling a bit uneasy. Suddenly, the assault of questions began.

"How do you know her?"

"She's my mom."

"What was she doing here?"

"Dropping me off for school."

"Will she be back?"

"Um, yeah."

"When? Why?"

"After school to take me back home." Flamerunner began to feel a bit impatient with this strange pony.

"So… Awesome!" The rainbow pony squeaked, pressing her hoofs on her cheeks. "I'm Rainbowdash, and someday _I'll_ be a member of the Wonderbolts; just like Spitfire!" She stamped her right hoof on the ground confidently.

"I'm Flamerunner." The white filly replied, admiring Rainbowdash's ambition.

"Hey," The rainbow pony said suddenly, narrowing her eyes. "Where are your wings? Spitfire's a pegasus, so why are you a unicorn?" Flamerunner was about to point out that she was, in fact, an alicorn, but then remembered what her mother had said.

"My dad was a unicorn, so I inherited his horn instead of the wings." A lie. The first lie she had told; it wouldn't be the last.

"What do you mean 'was'? Isn't he still… Oh, wait…" Rainbowdash trailed off, making the realization. "Sorry…"

"It's okay. It happened when I was still little, so I don't even remember him." Flamerunner sighed.

"Oh… Well, um… See you around, Flamerunner!" The rainbow pony called as she took off in flight toward the pegasus building. The white filly stared after her, feeling left out. _No you won't, _She thought to herself, _While I'm here, I'm just an ordinary unicorn. We go to different buildings._

By the time she got into her first class, Magic 1, Flamerunner was late.

"And who are you?" The professor inquired, looking her up and down. He was grey with a white mane and mustache; his cutiemark was a stack of three books titled "Magic". As he spoke, a Manehattan accent rung clear. The students in his class looked as if they were in the middle of learning a lesson, for they all had paper on their desks and were holding pencils in their hoofs. As the professor spoke, they looked up at the new arrival with curious eyes.

"I'm Flamerunner. Sorry I'm late, it's my first day and I got a little lost…" Yet another lie. The filly looked around the classroom with nervous orange eyes; everypony was watching her.

"Quite alright." The seating arrangements were set up like a collage classroom; three long rows of wooden booths were put in front of corresponding table rows. The professor gestured toward an empty seat in the front row. "You can have that slot there, but before you take your seat, do you have any experience with magic?" Flamerunner thought for a moment, trying to decide how to answer.

"Well… I understand the basics of a levitation spell, but I've never been able to do it." She looked down at the ground, expecting an array of laughter from the other students. To her surprise, however, they looked impressed.

"Understanding a levitation spell? At your age, that's brilliant! Why don't you give it a go?" The professor suggested as he stepped to the side and motioned for Flamerunner to stand at the front of the class. She trotted into place and looked around the room for a target. Among the scattered lesson plans and graded papers on the professor's desk, she saw a blue pen down on its side.

Focusing her eyes on it and bowing her head so that her white horn was aligned, Flamerunner began to flow energy to it. When she had channeled enough, the white filly's dark red aura appeared to her horn with a flash; there was no flickering this time. At that moment the professor, who was leaning his back against the wall, shifted his weight to one side, watching her aura with interest. The students gasped and began to murmur to each other with excited voices.

Flamerunner took a deep breath and squeezed her eyes shut, attempting to awaken the aura inside the pen with her own. She strained; a bead of sweat dripping down from her flame-colored bangs. Even though she had never seem him, an image of her father came to the white filly's mind, and with that she felt herself surge with more power than she ever experienced before. Rather than her cloud of her aura simply appearing around the pen, a ray of it shot out from Flamerunner's horn and hit it with a 'ZAP'. The ray consisted of her dark red, but a deep black color as well, and the two colors mixed together to create a cloud of aura around the pen that way. The room was filled with the pressure of her power, and the students watched her with gigantic eyes; they knew that was not the way the spell was supposed to be performed.

While the ray was shooting from her horn, Flamerunner felt a feeling of uncontrollable rage, and she continued on with the spell that had become much more than a simple levitation.

She couldn't stop. As the filly squeezed her eyes shut harder, tears streamed from them and she clenched her teeth, unsure of what to do. Suddenly, the pen exploded with a 'PEWW', and it was over. Flamerunner's horn had returned to normal, for it was no longer glowing. She crouched on the ground with one knee down, gasping for breath.

"Class dismissed." The professor said darkly, and all of the other students rushed out of the room with a thundering of hoofs on tile, and then there was silence. The professor simply walked up to Flamerunner and held out a hoof to help her up.

"It doesn't usually go that way…" The white filly explained, taking the hoof and getting up.

"Who are you, Flamerunner? You're more than a unicorn, aren't you?"

Unfazed by the question, the flame-maned filly looked up at the professor with large, unblinking orange eyes.

"Yes." She replied with a soft, steady voice. "I'm an alicorn."


	4. Chapter 3

Chapter three

The Professor blinked. "An alicorn? I thought they were just a myth."

Flamerunner sighed, trying to think of a way to describe her situation. A clock ticked on the classroom wall with each passing second. Tick… Tock… Tick… Tock. The white filly watched as the second hand swirled around the twelve numbers. Finally, she turned back to the stallion.

"Lemme show you." She crouched down head first and slipped the purple school uniform off. Once it hit the floor, Flamerunner straightened up and spread her wings. For a moment, the professor just stood in place with his mouth wide open. Then, he closed it and regained his composure.

"Fascinating!" He exclaimed, circling around the filly. The stallion's horn glowed light blue and he floated a clipboard and pencil above his effortlessly. The pencil began to scribble notes furiously as he examined Flamerunner; the professor paused.

"And that… That power… It's because you're an alicorn that your aura reacted the way it did?"

"Well, it's never happened before… But it's only the fifth time I've tried using magic." The white filly replied, watching the professor circle around her.

"How did you control it?" He asked.

"I didn't; it was more like my power was controlling _me_." The white filly shuddered at the memory that was reality not long ago. The professor paused for a moment and the pencil stopped, for he was deep in thought.

"Does anypony else know about this?"

"Just my mom." Another pause.

"Well, Flamerunner," the professor began, "I look forward to teaching you everything I know." The clipboard and pencil floated back over to the stallion's desk, and the blue aura that was around them disappeared.

"Wait, that's it?" The white filly couldn't believe what she was hearing; after her magic went out of control, the stallion was still willing to teach her!

"Actually, that's _not_ it. To help you learn how to control your incredible strength, starting tomorrow, I'll need you to stay after school every day for an extra hour."

"A whole HOUR!?" Flamerunner squeaked, her orange eyes wide.

"Yes; unless you want what happened in class today to repeat itself." Once again, the white filly shuddered.

"No, that's okay… I'll stay after…"

"Wonderful," the professor smiled, "I'll see you tomorrow, then."

Flamerunner trotted out of the unicorn building with her mouth curved up in a smile; she was going to learn magic! Ponies were scattered everywhere in the front of the three buildings; some were talking, some trotted over to their friends, and others just made their way to their next class. After deep thought, Flamerunner remembered that she had basic mathematics next. She turned toward the middle building and was about to begin walking over to it, but then froze when she heard a cry.

"FLAMERUNNERRRR!"

The white filly turned to the direction that the voice came from, and realized who it was immediately. In a blur of light blue and all the colors of the rainbow, the pegasus pony that she had met before crashed into her from the sky.

"Owwww…" Flamerunner rubbed her head in the spot Rainbowdash had caused her to fall on. "Hey! What's the big idea!?" The rainbow pony slowly got back up to her feet, opening and closing her wings.

"Sorry 'bout that," She said with a guilty smile, "I've _really_ gotta work on my landing."

"You can say that again." The white filly replied, rolling her eyes. "First of all, you had your wings closed before you even touched the ground. You can't just do that and think you're gonna land okay; 'cause you're not."

Rainbowdash was about to say something else, but then narrowed her eyes suspiciously and fixed them on Flamerunner's.

"You know a lot about flying for a unicorn pony." She said slowly.

"Oh, well um… Uh…" The white filly looked at the ground, wondering how to cover for her carelessness.

"Oh, that's right!" Rainbowdash exclaimed with a smile, "How could I forget? You're Spitfire's daughter; I'm sure you know all kinds of stuff about flying!"

Flamerunner laughed nervously, relieved. "Haha, yeah. Even though I don't have wings, my mom tried to teach me everything she knew." She waited for a response with satisfied closed eyes and a tilted back head, then realized there was silence from the rainbow pony. The white filly opened one of her eyes to see what was going on. Rainbowdash was just staring at her with huge, sparkling pink eyes.

"…Everything..?" She murmured, almost as if she was staring through Flamerunner and her eyes had taken her somewhere else.

"Um, yeah. Everything."

For a moment, everything was silent and still.

"PLEASE TEACH MEEEE!" Rainbowdash begged, falling to her knees and crying tears of hope. Flamerunner looked around nervously.

"Shhh! Everypony's staring at us!" She hissed through the gritted teeth of a nervous smile.

"PLEEEEAAASEE!" The rainbow pony cried again, her hoofs clapped together.

"Fine, fine, I will! Just shut up!" Flamerunner snapped, losing her patience. At once, Rainbowdash stopped crying and shot up to her hoofs, her eyes wide once again.

"You will?" She asked, almost as if she didn't believe the white filly.

"Yeah, sure. I will." She rolled her eyes.

"THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOUTHAN KYOU" Rainbowdash yelled, flying around in small circles.

"Don't mention it." Flamerunner mumbled over the rainbow pony's continuous thanking, an annoyed look on her face as she made her way to the main building for math class.

The white filly stepped into the classroom, on time for once, and looked around at all of the ponies socializing. The format of the tables and booths was the same as the last class, except everything was reversed; the chalkboard was on the far end of the room.

"Ah! You must be Flamerunner!"

Flamerunner looked up to see a dark purple mare with a long, blond mane.

"My name is Lillyleaf; I'm so excited to have you as my new math student! I've already heard so much about you!"

"Like what?" The white filly asked warily.

"I've heard from some of my students that you're very skilled with magic!" The teacher answered cheerfully.

_Already? _Flamerunner thought, shocked by how fast the news got around. The late bell rang; three chimes.

"Anyway, you can take a seat right there, next to Roselu- …. Is she late again?" Lillyleaf sighed. "Oh, well. Go ahead and sit next to Vinyl Scratch." She pointed to a large empty spot in the booth. With a nod, Flamerunner walked nonchalantly over to the booth slot, slid past other students, and sat down next to another white filly with a dark and light blue mane; she wore black and purple shades over her eyes.

"Sup." She said simply, glancing at Flamerunner before looking back at the chalkboard.

"Hey." The flame-maned filly replied. Lillyleaf trotted to the front of the class and turned to face everypony.

"Good morning, class! Today, we're going to learn about the joys of long divis-" She was interrupted by the door being swung open and a large, buff, brown pegasus entered the classroom, dragging in a white filly with a dark and light pink colored mane by the arm. The filly's hind legs dragged on the ground, and she had an annoyed look on her face.

"What's the meaning of this?" The teacher asked, sounding both confused and angry.

"I caught this one trying to sneak into the pegasus classes with paper wings." The pegasus stallion sneered, spitting the words 'paper wings' like they were an insult.

"It's not fair!" The pink-maned pony cried, her voice squeaking. "All of the classes should be open for everypony; just because somepony has fancy wings shouldn't make them any better than us earthponies!" She spat the words 'fancy wings' like they were an insult.

"But how would you even take part in the pegasus classes if you can't fly, Roseluck?" Lillyleaf sighed, sounding scornful.

"Well… Um… You could just… Uh… JUSTICE FOR EVERYPONY!" She yelled, clearly not knowing how to respond. There was a groan from Lillyleaf. Flamerunner smiled.

She liked this pony.


End file.
